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Wednesday, April 4, 2012

#316: Tony Perkins

Tony Perkins is the clinically insane, unhingedly despicable
president of the Family Research Council (he
was previously a member of the Louisiana House of Representatives), a
conservative think tank dedicated to bigotry and denialism (see member
Charmaine Yoest discuss evolution and the school curriculum here).
He also runs the Christian audio streaming site Lightsource.com, which – as
such sites generally do – offer hateful bigotry in return for donations. He is
a close associate of James Dobson (who founded the FRC) and Albert Mohler, and
is also president of the Patriarchy Research Council (which does no research
either).

Can you guess what he thinks of same sex marriage?
In his own words: “The definition of marriage as the union of one man and one
woman is rooted in the order of nature itself […] This union can only be
protected through amending the United States Constitution. If it's not,
activists will continue using the courts to sell a five-legged dog. But as we
say where I'm from in Louisiana, 'that dog won't hunt.’” (Here’s a fundraising
letter from FRC).
His views are apparently shared by his former Louisiana legislative colleague, former
state senator Heulette Fontenot, who secured passage of a bill to disallow
domestic partnerships in Louisiana or to recognize such relationships approved
in other states (relatedly).

Perkins has described the gay civil rights movement as “a
movement dedicated to destroying marriage, free speech, public health,
religious liberty, and (after the DADT repeal) national security”. His
arguments against repealing DADT constitute a colorful lot. Here’s “if the ban
is lifted, so many black and Hispanic soldiers will quit that we'll have to
reintroduce the draft” (a claim which makes him a racist as well – “it is the
blacks and latinos who hate gays, not I”): .
Here’s “repealing DADT will provide terrible suffering for the military
chaplains”.

He also pandered one of the most atrociously insane anti-gay
arguments ever attempted (a sort of self-defeating naturalistic fallacy on
meth): “There's no correlation between inacceptance of homosexuality and
depression and suicide […] rather […] [t]hese young people who identify as gay
or lesbian, we know from the social science that they have a higher propensity
to depression or suicide because of that internal conflict. Homosexuality is
‘abnormal’, and kids know it, which leads them to despair.” That’s the nice way of putting it, however – his explanation of how gays are
really possessed by Satan is here (first comment wins the Internet).

In fact, he more or less explicitly advocates violence
against gays, and locking them up.
Hence, he was appointed to serve on Bobby Jindal’s Louisiana Commission on
Family and Marriage.

Perkins has called on Evangelicals, Catholics and Orthodox Jews
not to comply with rules and laws permitting abortion, same-sex marriage, and
other matters of the anti-life agenda that go against their religious
consciences. Here’s Perkins claiming that the courts constitute a greater
threat to America than the terrorists, and here is his claim that gays are committing terrorism against the legal system.
And here, for that matter, is his claim that advocates of a separation between
church and state are terrorists.
He is also pathologically hypocritical and virulently opposed to environmentalism.

In 2010, the Family Research Council was correctly and
finally classified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Perkins, whose full emotional range seems to span anything from hatred to detestation,
dismissed the hate group designation as the result of a political attack by a
“liberal organization” and “the left's smear campaign of conservatives”.
Apparently quoting Perkins and his group, literally and in context, is
“smearing”. That should have made Perkins think twice. Obviously it won’t.

Perkins is indeed another, and rather spectacular, example
of the hysterical paranoia and batshit conspiracy mongering – fueled by a
persecution complex of incomparable unhingedness – that people like Perkins
suffer from. You sort of see the engine winding up: “The liberals disagree with
me; therefore, the liberals criticize what I say; therefore the liberals are in
a conspiracy and out to get me. This is just like the persecution of Christians
in Ancient Rome. Therefore the liberals want to destroy me and ban
Christianity. And they want to do the same to you".

You can see Perkins’s take on keeping it real here,
and a fine example of what “family values” amount to here.

Re: DADT, what's really got people like Perkins bent outta shape is the thought that they won't be able to use the military to train soldiers for the Christian Taliban - without it, either their moles will flip out and show off all the hate they've learned OR they'll discover that gay people actually are people. Neither outcome fits into the plan...

Perkins continuing his insane rampage of paranoia, identifying persecutors of Christians at every turn. This time it is the notoriously radical group DAR, Daughters of the American Revolution, which is apparently persecuting Perkins by recommending to its members that they offer more inclusive prayers at Christmas.

Here he is trying to argue that allowing women in combat will lead to reinstatement of the draft. The logic is … transcendent.

But confusion alone cannot explain his use of demonstrable lies to claim that liberal ‘misinformation’ is corrupting schools. The argument is so self-defeating that it beggars belief – but Perkins’s reason-challenged audience will presumably nevertheless believe it. Nor can it, presumably, explain his assertion that the “homosexual lobby” is out to destroy religious freedom in America. The latter is of course the reason why Perkins and the FRC has launched “an ambitious, no-holds-barred campaign to keep marriage as between one man and one woman and preserve the American family” – i.e. to restrict other people’s religious freedom – because FRC is allegedly worried about the two cases before the Supreme Court (on California’s Prop 8 and on DOMA) that will have “a lasting impact on the very soul of our nation.”

And finally – we had waited for this – Perkins does anti-semitism. One could say that it is, in fairness, denouncing Jews for voting democratic rather than trying to control the world, but there is nothing fair or exculpable about that.

At least Perkins is opposed to demonizing gays, according to himself. I suppose his concern is brilliantly illustrated in this exchange. Or perhaps by his claim that 30% of characters on tv are gay as a ploy to shield a dangerous lifestyle.

His comments on the repeal of DADT are entirely unsurprising. Here he doubles down on blaming the repeal for military sexual assaults, not consistently taking care to stay within the bounds of reason. His earlier response to the decision is here. Part of his opposition is apparently his concern over potential sham marriage done just in order to obtain benefits (which is, of course, inconceivable in the case of straight marriages).

It’s a hard world, and the law is indeed difficult, it seems, with judges coming to decisions that Perkins doesn’t approve of. But Perkins has a solution. According to Perkins, it would be a lot simpler if we just operated on the Ten Commandments instead. Isn’t it weird that no one has thought of that before?

Here is Perkins being stupid regarding creationism in public schools and his perception of the Theory of Evolution as leftist brainwashing.

Perkins makes political suggestions: Instead of Obamacare the US should use healthcare funds to bomb Syria - because that is apparently less socialist. But then again, he seems to be a bit confused about the epithets. For instance, he has denounced Christians who want welfare as, among all things, theocrats. Which is … unusual. Here Perkins gets – or continues to get – things precisely idiotic.

As so many other wingnuts Perkins also recently attacked Obama for quoting Lincoln instead of saying what they think Lincoln should have said.

As delusional as ever, Perkins has declared, once again, that the tide is turning against marriage equality – a nice illustration of his grasp of reality. A similar lack of perspective is displayed by his worry that humanity will die out due to gay rights. (If he genuinely believes that marriage equality will make otherwise heterosexual people to prefer to marry gay instead, one really has to wonder a bit about Perkins’s own proclivities.) Here he is upset that gay and transgender people are allowed to sign up for health insurance. Surely that’s taking equality too far, isn’t it?

But most of all, Perkins is afraid. He is, for instance, afraid of the surely upcoming progressive kristallnacht. After all, there are people out there who disagree with him. That’s the same as wanting to kill him.